ates, {whose
judgment was riper than that} of the gods or of men used to boast that he
had never looked into a tavern nor believed the evidence of his own eyes
in any crowded assembly which was disorderly: so nothing is more in
keeping than always conversing with wisdom.

Live coals are more readily held in men's mouths than a secret!

Whatever you talk of at home will fly forth in an instant,

Become a swift rumor and beat at the walls of your city.

Nor is it enough that your confidence thus has been broken,

As rumor but grows in the telling and strives to embellish.

The covetous servant who feared to make public his knowledge

A hole in the ground dug, and therein did whisper his secret

That told of a king's hidden ears: this the earth straightway
echoed,

And rustling reeds added that Midas was king in the story.

"Every word of this is true," I insisted, "and no one deserves to get into
trouble more quickly than he who covets the goods of others! How could
cheats and swindlers live unless they threw purses or little bags
clinking with money into the crowd for bait? Just as dumb brutes are
enticed by food, human beings are not to be caught unless they have
something in the way of hope at which to nibble! (That was the reason
that the Crotonians gave us such a satisfactory reception, but) the ship
does not arrive, from Africa, with your money and your slaves, as you
promised. The patience of the fortune-hunters is worn out and they have
already cut down their liberality so that, either I am mistaken, or else
our usual luck is about to return to punish you!"

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIRST.

("I have thought up a scheme," replied Eumolpus, "which will embarrass
our fortune-hunting friends sorely," and as he said this, he drew his
tablets from his wallet and read his last wishes aloud, as follows:)
"All who are down for legacies under my will, my freedmen only excepted,
shall come into what I bequeath them subject to this condition, that they
do cut my body into pieces and devour said pieces in sight of the crowd:
{nor need they be inordinately shocked} for among some peoples, the law
ordaining that the dead shall be devoured by their relatives is still in
force; nay, even the sick are often abused because they render their own
flesh worse! I admonish my friends, by these presents, lest they refuse
what I command, that they devour my c